Pound for pound, questions about Europe raise a lot of chuntering

Johann Lamont fears that Scotland could be lumbered with the euroOliver Berg/EPA

Halfway through Alex Salmond’s fifth answer to a question about Scotland’s relationship with Europe, Tricia Marwick, the Presiding Officer, finally lost patience: “Order!” she yipped. “There’s too much chuntering.”

Chunter, from the Lancastrian meaning to babble nonsense, is right. You’d think, in the wake of the beef ban, the straight banana directive (OK, a myth), the fisheries’ policy (all too real) and the disaster of the euro, that MSPs might have had enough of Europe. But no. The European Union is a Very Good Thing.

Running through FMQs yesterday was a seam of cross-party agreement that the country should stay a member of the EU, but only on current terms, with the pound as its currency. For Johann Lamont, the Labour leader, this sacred proposition…